White House pushes for release of Jan. 6 documents as Trump, Bannon rebuff committee
ABC News
The battle over White House records of former President Donald Trump's activities related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack intensified Wednesday.
The battle over White House records of former President Donald Trump's activities related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack intensified Wednesday as President Joe Biden formally rejected Trump's claims that the documents should be shielded from release to the House select committee investigating the insurrection.
In a letter to the National Archives, the White House counsel's office said President Biden is "instructing" the agency to comply with the House select committee's request for the records.
"President [Biden] maintains his conclusion that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States," the letter states, after Trump last week made a broad effort to keep confidants from cooperating with the probe.
"President Biden does not uphold the former President's assertion of privilege," said Wednesday's letter, which also told the agency that "in light of the urgency of the Select Committee’s need for the information, the President further instructs you to provide those pages 30 days after your notification to the former President, absent any intervening court order."
